Assassin’s Fate

I had met with Kettricken only that one awkward time since our return. She had been truly ill that day, and full of sadness. Her rooms had been curtained and close. This day, we were admitted to a chamber where the window stood ajar and the sunlight flooded the room. It was a simple room, sparsely furnished. There were chairs to sit on, and a low table, and little else. A vase almost as tall as me held an arrangement of reeds and rushes. That was all. The flagged floor was scrubbed and bare.

Lady Kettricken entered without ceremony shortly after a servant had shown us into the room and announced us. Her grey hair was braided and coiled about her head. She wore a long, straight, pale-blue cotton robe, belted at her waist, and soft slippers. No jewellery did she wear, nor paint on her face. She could have been any old woman at a market. She regarded us with calm blue eyes. The closest she came to a complaint was to say, ‘This is a sudden visit.’

I found I was smiling at her, delighted. I almost wriggled. No. Nighteyes within me was delighted. I took a deep breath of the air, seeking her familiar scent. ‘You still walk like a forest hunter, light of foot and steady-eyed,’ I told her.

‘Bee!’ Nettle rebuked me.

But Lady Kettricken had only a puzzled smile for me. ‘Please, sit,’ she bade us, and there was only a slight hitch of stiffness as she lowered herself to a seat. ‘I am pleased to see all of you. Should I ring for refreshments for us?’

‘Could there be ginger-cakes?’ I asked, again without knowing I would speak. Ashamed, I hunched my head down between my shoulders and looked up at her.

She raised her brows at me and with concern asked, ‘Is there something going on here that I do not know about?’

Nettle looked hopelessly at Riddle. He kept silent. Nettle tried. ‘Bee believes that her father is still alive. She believes that he has sent—’

‘No.’ I had to interrupt. ‘No, he didn’t send Nighteyes. He came on his own, to me. And he asked me to come to see Queen Kettricken.’

The former queen was a fair-skinned woman. I did not think she could blanch whiter but she did. ‘I am no longer a queen,’ she reminded us.

‘You are ever a queen to him, but more than that, you are always the hunter with the bow who fed everyone in the dark times. He was glad to be beside you, and glad to run ahead of you and drive game for you, and to offer you what comfort he could when you were sad.’

Her lips trembled slightly. Then she said gently. ‘Your father told you tales of our time in the Mountains.’

I folded my arms tightly across my chest and pulled my head up straight. I must not appear mad or hysterical. ‘My lady, my father Fitz told me little of those times. Some, I know. But my Wolf Father tells me these things. He has words for you, before he returns to my father. To die, I think.’

‘Can this be so? How did the wolf’s spirit linger? How can he come to you? And where is Fitz? Still in far-off Clerres, and alive?’ Tragedy was in her eyes and drooped her mouth. She became an elderly woman.

I waited for the answer to rise in me. ‘No. He is at the quarry, in the Mountains. You know the place well. Where Verity carved his dragon. The Scentless One believed him dead. He was mistaken. Fitz is there, but very weak and riddled with worms. He will die soon, and I will die with him. I wished to see you one last time. To let you know how dear you were to me.’ I stopped speaking. I was surprised to find I was standing in front of Kettricken, holding both her hands in mine. The thought he conveyed to me now was only for me. Your mother was a good mate for Fitz. She gave him what he needed. But this is the woman I would have chosen for us. A baffling thought and not something to speak aloud. I pushed him back. ‘He is very earnest that you believe this.’ He offered a memory and I spoke it aloud. ‘He remembers this. Sometimes, on the hunt, your hands would get cold and stiff. You would take off your mittens and gloves, and warm your hands in the ruff of fur on his throat.’

Lady Kettricken flowed to her feet as if she were a slow fountain. She looked at Nettle. She was a silver-haired queen again. ‘We will need a tent, and warm things, for even in summer the Mountains are chill in the evening. You will take me there. And the Fool. Lord Golden. Whoever he is being today. Summon him as well. Today.’

‘Bring food!’ I said. Then the wolf told us the last thing I wanted to know. ‘He is infected with parasites that are eating him. Day by day he dwindles, and I do not know how long I have been gone from him.’ It was strange to hear myself say, ‘Ask Bee. She knows of such deaths. She has seen one.’

He faded to the back of my mind as if exhausted. I could understand that. Never had I felt him so intense. But he left me standing in the circle of three adults staring down at me in wary belief.